The adventures of a New Jersey college professor with very strange friends, colleagues, and family members.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

“And The Children Were Singing, You’ll Be Back At Christmastime”

“It was long ago, and it was far awayAnd it was so much better than it is today.”--Meat Loaf

Yes, I know, I promised to talk about my grandfathers this time, but I’d much rather tell you about Ken, with whom I had an incredible strange friendship for more than a decade.

First let me tell you that out of all my friends, Ken was the most stable, reasonable, logical, and down-to-earth one I had. Ken was sort of like St. Jude; if one of my other, high-maintenance friends was acting up and nothing I did to help was working, I would inevitably call up Ken and tell him the problem. He’d have it solved in minutes.

Ken was a year older in repertory, but because we competed in a lot of the same events, we found ourselves being thrown together a lot. He was extremely intelligent (he could write speeches worthy of presidential candidates) and had an incredibly dry sense of humor that almost nobody picked up except for me. he was kind of like Ben Stein. I laughed hilariously at everything he said, causing people to stare at me.

We became friends in repertory, but never really hung out together; he was a year older, had a different set of friends, and the only time we ever really saw each other was at rehearsal. He wasn’t the best actor in the troupe—sometimes his line delivery was a little flat, but at least he was consistent. He always knew his mark and his lines and didn’t have the usual actor’s attitude problem. If he was playing the lead, fine. If he was just in the crowd scenes, that was also fine.

One day near the end of the school year, Ken called me at my house. This surprised me because I never expected him to have something to tell me that was so important it couldn’t wait until rehearsal that night. After determining nothing was wrong, Ken finally got around to asking what he wanted:

“Would you like to get together and discuss Science Fiction?”

This was extremely odd. First of all, I had no recollection of ever telling Ken that I was a big Science Fiction fan (which I was), and second, why did he want to “discuss it” with me? I was more than a little curious, so I said, “sure…come on over.”

Ken lived exactly five minutes away from my house and when he climbed up the front steps he was carrying two large shopping bags from Macy’s. “What’s all that about?” I asked.

“I thought you might like to read some of my books,” he said, “so we can discuss them.”

The Macy’s bags contained everything from Frank Herbert’s entire Dune series to Harlan Ellison’s Edgeworks to Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Vonnegut…all the really heavy hitters. I couldn’t think of a way to explain to Ken that it would take me months to get through them before we could “discuss them.” For the remainder of his visit, we talked about Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica.

The very next afternoon, Ken called wanting to discuss Science Fiction…again. I told him that, not having speed-reading abilities, I had not been able to really delve into his collection yet, but that didn’t seem to bother him. I shrugged and said, “come on over.”

He did and we spent the afternoon playing Scrabble. I’m still not sure how that happened.

Now, while all of this was going on, the repertory was preparing to go to a tournament in Pennsylvania. One of the events they were hosting was called “Dramatic Pairs.” It was pretty much self-explanatory. Two people acted a scene together (props and costumes encouraged).

After a week of not discussing Science Fiction, Ken finally caved and asked me, “would you like to be my partner in Dramatic Pairs at the Mansfield tournament?”

I was so stunned that Ken thought so highly of my acting abilities that he wanted to be my partner that I completely missed that the whole “discussing Science Fiction” thing was a ruse to get to know me better and to make sure I wouldn’t go bonkers during the tournament. Flattered, I said I’d be happy to partner Ken. “Good!” Ken said, all excited. “I’ve already got a scene picked out!”

We ended up doing a scene from Same Time, Next Year. In particular, it was the scene in which Alan Alda’s character breaks down while telling Ellen Burstyn that his son was killed in Vietnam. It was an incredibly powerful scene. Remember that Ken, up until this point, had little actual acting experience—he was mostly an orator. But something happened when we took the stage; we played off each other beautifully. We wound up winning a very respectable third place.

Since rehearsals for Same Time, Next Year had been so frequent, Ken and I got used to hanging around together. After the season was over, he would continue to come over to my house every Friday night, eat pizza, play Scrabble, and make fun of MTV. This went on for three more years until Ken left for college.

I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t have a girlfriend. Like I said, he was intelligent, funny, witty, and quite handsome. (Of course, I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t have a boyfriend, either). But every Friday, there we were.

It started to get weirder. When Ken would come home from college for winter break, I would be the first person he’d call. Often he’d call before he had even unpacked. And, because he was a terrible correspondent, I didn’t hear from him much during the academic year.

“Hi!” he’d say, enthusiastically. “I’m home! Let’s do something!”

Let me explain something here. Due to a combination of jobs and grants, I had a ridiculous amount of money. Yet, Ken refused to ever let me pick up a tab. We’d go out to diner; he’d pay. We went to the movies; he’d pay. We got popcorn at the movies; he’d pay.

I was confused. Were these “dates?” We certainly acted like we were on a date—I would do full makeup and hair and he’d put on a very nice sweater and cologne. We never argued, we liked the same things and had friends in common. The one thing missing, of course, was that nothing physical ever happened. We would hug hello as soon as he got back from college, but aside from that, I can think of only two other instances when Ken touched me: When he told me Victor had died he held me, trying not to freak out. The second time was when I danced with him at his wedding.

We went on these weird “pseudo-dates” for seven years. I loved it. I missed him so much that I would break my leg answering the phone when I knew he was coming home. He was my best guy friend, that’s all there was.

And then he met Lucy. And it was all downhill from there.

Now, I’m not the brightest bead on the rosary and sometimes I can be as dumb as a box of hair, but I still can’t figure out why a guy can’t have a girlfriend and a “girl friend” at the same time. It’s happened with all of my male friendships. Hell, it’s happened with most of my female ones, too. I seem to be the only one capable of having a romantic relationship (with my ex) and maintain my platonic friendships with both sexes. Why was I the one to discover the magic button? Didn't anyone else know where it was?

My ex was never threatened by my relationship with Ken. If Ken and I wanted to go bowling, we went bowling. It seemed simple.

Lucy, however, was very threatened by me. I couldn’t understand why—not only wasn’t I dating Ken, I had never dated Ken, nor did I want to.

It is perhaps best summed up by Ken’s friend Frank, who said: “Lucy has taken Ken’s penis and put it in her purse. And she says, ‘you can have this back when I’ve decided you can handle it.’”

Ken’s wedding was awful. I felt like I was burying a friend. I knew I’d never see him alone again. No more Friday night Scrabble marathons, no more MTV, no more spending hours on the phone solving each other’s problems. He was gone.

My ex and I tried to do things with them as a couple, but it wasn’t the same. It would never be the same. I guess part of me always figured that I would somehow wind up with him since we were so good together. But then he began being a “family man,” and with the news of Lucy’s first pregnancy, I wrote him off for good. We even stopped sending Christmas cards. I don’t know where he is, what he’s doing, or who he’s with.

All I know is that I lost something special when that woman walked down the aisle.

4 Comments:

Hey BG-Although I've never commented, I do read your blog. And look forward to new posts! Anyway, you seem to be the first person I know that has actually heard of Same Time, Next Year. (No one my age has every heard of it, I think). I love that movie. :) And that sounds like a great scene to do.~Carissa (CSGirl)

I'm still close (28 years) to the first guy. I also am friends with his girlfriend. I don't think my husband would approve if I went out at night with him, but lunch is ok. I don't know why. I lunch with lots of different guy pals and there is no problem.

And yes, that scene was one of the most moving that I have ever watched. I can still remember it word for word.